Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am that.
Speaker 1: Today we're discussing cable comeback, Robin Hood retirement, and the
Speaker 1: forty two billion dollar question. That's right, buddy, This is
Speaker 1: our Friday flight. And actually, before we get to our
Speaker 1: favorite stories from this past week, we have a little update.
Speaker 1: So last Friday, we celebrated our six episodes, right we did.
Speaker 1: We celebrated that by deciding to give away six hundred
Speaker 1: dollars to our listeners. Why not? And I said six thousand,
Speaker 1: But you said, I don't have that kind of money.
Speaker 1: Ain't got that ft X money. But ft X doesn't
Speaker 1: have any money anymore. They don't have money, just like us.
Speaker 1: So the way that listeners were able to enter into
Speaker 1: win that money, all that you needed to do was
Speaker 1: to sign up for the How to Money newsletter. Um
Speaker 1: and as long as you did that, you were entered
Speaker 1: into win. And you and I we did the randomizer
Speaker 1: and chose the top six results. And uh so, Stephen W. B. Tyler,
Speaker 1: s Jen R. Normal Ty, Miranda Kay, and Mike E. G.
Speaker 1: We will be reaching out to all six of you
Speaker 1: because y'all just won a hundred bucks each. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you forgotsh money didn't get around to it. We
Speaker 1: had a ton of people sign up for the newsletter.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. But if there are folks out
Speaker 1: there listening, they're like, I forgot and I can't win
Speaker 1: six hundred bucks, So I'm just not going to sign
Speaker 1: up for the newsletter. No, No, that's the exact wrong
Speaker 1: thing to do. Well, We're gonna have more giveaways in
Speaker 1: the future, but we'll do this again. There is a
Speaker 1: reward just in and of itself by being a Hot
Speaker 1: of Money newsletter subscriber. That's right, all the financial wisdom
Speaker 1: and nuggets of information that come your way via that
Speaker 1: newsletter every single Tuesday morning. But Joel, real quick, I
Speaker 1: wanted to take a minute to update everybody on my
Speaker 1: the grocery experiment that Kate and I said that we're
Speaker 1: going to conduct. Remember this took a month off Costco, right, So,
Speaker 1: so basically we wanted to take that month off Costco
Speaker 1: because I noticed that ever since we started shopping primarily
Speaker 1: at Costco for our groceries, our budget had increased significantly.
Speaker 1: And so I talked about it with Kate and she
Speaker 1: was totally down to conduct this little experiment, and so
Speaker 1: we switched back to our original o G which is Aldi.
Speaker 1: And are you ready to hear the results? I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I want to, I might plug my ears. Dude.
Speaker 1: Our grocery budget went down over thirty percent, Yes, over
Speaker 1: and so weather. So Kate will argue, She's like, well,
Speaker 1: the quality and this is one of your favorite lines.
Speaker 1: Do like the quality is higher at Costco? And I understand.
Speaker 1: I get that. I think there are certain things where
Speaker 1: you are getting a superior product. But I think I
Speaker 1: bet too. I wonder if one of the reasons is
Speaker 1: you I wonder if you still have some things hanging
Speaker 1: around from that Costco trip from Sometimes we took that
Speaker 1: into account though, because Kate was just like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: you know, we do have some frozen veggies and some
Speaker 1: frozen meat that that we did consume in the month
Speaker 1: of November that we purchased in October. But we based
Speaker 1: the accounted for all of that. And even still, dude,
Speaker 1: even still they're over And there are various reasons why
Speaker 1: that might be the case for us, right, like whether
Speaker 1: it's just they've got a variety of products that Aldi
Speaker 1: doesn't carry, right, Like Aldi just has the staples I've
Speaker 1: talked about that before and how at Costco, I'm tempted
Speaker 1: to get the special Japanese barbecue sauce or the truffle
Speaker 1: Hot sauce fridge they got all the sauce in our
Speaker 1: clubhouse right now, I love putting that on the leftovers.
Speaker 1: But I think there's an element of the fact that
Speaker 1: everything comes in larger quantities in bulk. I think we
Speaker 1: were just eating more. I think we were being encouraged
Speaker 1: to consume more calories that plus, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that we were tossing more more food away. Uh just
Speaker 1: I think there was more waste as well. But but regardless,
Speaker 1: I you know that this is anecdotal, this is just us.
Speaker 1: Your mileage may vary. But I definitely wanted to share
Speaker 1: that with listeners because hey, we do love Costco. There
Speaker 1: are certainly benefits, but I still think if you are
Speaker 1: looking to slash your grocery bill to the bone, I
Speaker 1: do think that the best place to do that is
Speaker 1: at Aldie. I think you're right. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think when you're talking about how can I get
Speaker 1: away by spending the least amount of money possible on
Speaker 1: food while still being able to eat like decent stuff, right,
Speaker 1: I think all the is the answer. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think Costco takes a little more creativity and maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit more time in the kitchen preparing the because
Speaker 1: that's the thing too. Man, At Costco, we're buying so
Speaker 1: much more prepared stuff like snack kind of stuff, and
Speaker 1: that's a budget buster. Man, Yeah, for sure. So I
Speaker 1: think Costco makes sense for a lot of people if
Speaker 1: they're going to it, it's wide open knowing that they
Speaker 1: might spend more money, but knowing, hey, there's a trade
Speaker 1: off and I'm getting better quality of certain ingredients. Like, Man,
Speaker 1: you can't compare the quality of a Costco steak to
Speaker 1: the quality of Manality steak. Like they're different probably true,
Speaker 1: different animals, right, like literally different animals, but with the
Speaker 1: one you're talking about horse and the other one you
Speaker 1: talk about the right. So um yeah, just from something
Speaker 1: like that, you're not directly comparing apples and apples, but
Speaker 1: if you're talking and in all these is more accessible
Speaker 1: for a lot of people for so many reasons. There's
Speaker 1: like smaller stores, they're closer, and you're just like talking
Speaker 1: about less likely that your budget runs a muck because
Speaker 1: you spent too much on Japanese Barbecusa, the ware Club.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of little things like that to do
Speaker 1: peak your interest. And if you're not careful, you you
Speaker 1: can let those I forget what they have. The CEO
Speaker 1: refers to them. But like those things that you find
Speaker 1: along the way, like they want to excite your interest
Speaker 1: in Costco with the rapid turnover of products. They want
Speaker 1: to delight you as a customer. But that can be
Speaker 1: to the detriment of your wallet, for sure. A man.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I wanted to quickly share that, and
Speaker 1: again to the six winners, we will be reaching out
Speaker 1: to you because of course we have your email since
Speaker 1: you signed up for the newsletter. We'll be reaching out
Speaker 1: to you to get you that money. Joel. Let's move on, man,
Speaker 1: Let's get to our Friday flight, which is of course
Speaker 1: a quick sampling of the stories that we found most
Speaker 1: interesting this week. And the Times they had an article
Speaker 1: about inflating prices of Christmas trees. Yes, inflation has made
Speaker 1: real life Christmas trees more expensive as well, along with
Speaker 1: everything else in your life. The average price last year
Speaker 1: for Christmas tree with seventy bucks for alive for tree
Speaker 1: uh this year is closer to eighty dollars. Uh. And
Speaker 1: the best advice from the Times is to buy a
Speaker 1: smaller tree, which I think is uh. I think that's
Speaker 1: good advice. So go the Charlie Brown route, because yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean prices on the six ft tree, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot less than what it'll cost you for
Speaker 1: an eight fit tree. Back in the day, That's something
Speaker 1: Kate and I used to do. We literally would get
Speaker 1: the smaller tree and put it on a like a
Speaker 1: milk crate, like on a box, elevate it and then
Speaker 1: kind of like wrap it with the what do you
Speaker 1: call it, tree liner or the skirt or whatever whatever
Speaker 1: goes around at the bottom, so you get some of
Speaker 1: that some of the actual height, but you're just not
Speaker 1: spending at all on the actual tree. Like. But it
Speaker 1: also pays the shop around of course. And if you
Speaker 1: aren't massively attached to real real life Christmas, you know,
Speaker 1: like natural Christmas trees or whatever, you might want to
Speaker 1: look for a deal on a fake Christmas tree after
Speaker 1: Christmas is over. For sure, you can pay for it
Speaker 1: in less than two years. I think you paid for
Speaker 1: years and listen two years same here. I think we
Speaker 1: spent seventy bucks on ours or something. You've got fancy ones,
Speaker 1: I mean, speaking of costco inflation. Was there the other
Speaker 1: day I saw they had five artificial Christmas trees and like, okay,
Speaker 1: got this premium ones that look very real like those
Speaker 1: of the fantasy ones. I don't need that. Keep an
Speaker 1: eye on those jokers if they go. I mean, because
Speaker 1: ours isn't. So I told everybody how I removed that
Speaker 1: bottom section. Yeah it did in order to fit our
Speaker 1: new lower ceilings. But it doesn't sit super well in
Speaker 1: the stand now because yeah, because it wasn't, it's not
Speaker 1: as fat and so it leans. So so you are
Speaker 1: in the market for one of time we actually invite
Speaker 1: Vacember twenty six, man, that's the day to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Actually, so you watch Spirited is what like
Speaker 1: they that movie or whatever the story of referenced like
Speaker 1: the real life Christmas Tree Guild or something like that,
Speaker 1: and made just made me think of that movie because
Speaker 1: like that's a pr campaign that he launched. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, there's actually this real life, real life there
Speaker 1: really is one of those. Yeah, well let's move on
Speaker 1: at like obviously, yeah, Christmas is Christmas trees are a
Speaker 1: little more expensive this year. Which is a problem. But
Speaker 1: I think most people they've probably I don't know if
Speaker 1: they haven't gotten there's yet, they're gonna give it this
Speaker 1: week out of all likelihood. And I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: Costco still does the live tree thing. If they do,
Speaker 1: that's always been the cheapest place actually over the years
Speaker 1: to get Christmas trees because they literally like don't set
Speaker 1: them up in storage ornything. They're like handing them to
Speaker 1: you out of the back of a truck. But let's
Speaker 1: move on. Let's talk about savings rates, Matt, because savings
Speaker 1: rates in the United States are plumbing, and after seeing
Speaker 1: a massive spike in the savings rates Americans in one
Speaker 1: October of this year, we have some new data and
Speaker 1: it turns out savings rates dipped quite a bit to
Speaker 1: the lowest levels actually since two thousand and five. The
Speaker 1: average savings rate in October, when you were still shopping
Speaker 1: at Costco, was a paltry two point three percent. That's
Speaker 1: according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. And basically, folks
Speaker 1: are less interested in saving because they have and I've
Speaker 1: never really loved this term, but they have what's known
Speaker 1: to economists as excess savings still on hand. So Basically,
Speaker 1: people feel like they can hit pause on saving that
Speaker 1: money because they've still got more money in the bank
Speaker 1: than they're used to having. So because of the lingering
Speaker 1: stimulus checks, people like, yeah, I still got I still
Speaker 1: got more cash on hand than I typically do, so
Speaker 1: I can I cannot save some of the money that's
Speaker 1: coming in, I can spend more of it. The problem is,
Speaker 1: it's easy to get used to spending more due to
Speaker 1: what's noticed hedonic adaptation. We get used to a certain
Speaker 1: lifestyle and then cutting back really hurts, whereas it would
Speaker 1: been easier if we had never experienced that inflated lifestyle
Speaker 1: to begin with, exactly as it's tough to dial it back.
Speaker 1: And as a recent Times headline put it, we can't
Speaker 1: keep spending like this. And it's true, right because at
Speaker 1: some point those excess funds, those savings, they're gonna get drained.
Speaker 1: And you know, hopefully we have already experienced pe inflation.
Speaker 1: But of course we would suggest that you keep your
Speaker 1: war chest full. We want you to hold onto more
Speaker 1: of those savings that I think a lot of folks are,
Speaker 1: in particular as younger, younger listeners are still trying to
Speaker 1: save up for those down payments, right Like, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of money that they want to keep at the ready.
Speaker 1: But basically, we also don't want you to spend all
Speaker 1: the money because we don't want you to be like
Speaker 1: the average American, especially if you're one of the individuals
Speaker 1: who has seen their student loan payments paused. Just keep
Speaker 1: in mind that they're not going to stay that way forever,
Speaker 1: right Like, we don't want you to take your excess
Speaker 1: savings as a chance to spend if if you're still
Speaker 1: hanging on to some use it as a chance to
Speaker 1: make more progress, you know, towards your financial goals. Uh. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as rates on savings accounts have continued to take upwards,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't feel nearly as much like you're you're
Speaker 1: being penalized for holding cash anymore. At least you're getting
Speaker 1: paid something for hanging onto that cash, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And on that note, there was another article this week
Speaker 1: that echoes are our sentiments on that front, and this
Speaker 1: is this is what we referred to as the forty
Speaker 1: two billion dollar question, because that's how actually the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal referred to it this week, and that's uh,
Speaker 1: that article was about how much money that savers left
Speaker 1: on the table in Q three of this year by
Speaker 1: staying with the big banks that barely pay a pittance
Speaker 1: on interest in their savings accounts. And we're not gonna
Speaker 1: beat the dead horse. I feel like we talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot, but let that number sink in forty
Speaker 1: two billion dollars just in Q three, in one quarter
Speaker 1: that that savers lost about because they're still or earning
Speaker 1: mind point zero one percent with one of the big
Speaker 1: banks when they could have been earning three and a
Speaker 1: half plus percent, right, And so inertia bias is strong.
Speaker 1: We get it, but this is one move worth making.
Speaker 1: You make it once and then you don't really have
Speaker 1: to think about it again. We'll link to an article
Speaker 1: in the show notes that will help you make that switch,
Speaker 1: because you might be saying, like, I just don't even
Speaker 1: know how to do this, and it sounds like a
Speaker 1: big pain, and it sounds like it's it's gonna be
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be really hard. But the truth
Speaker 1: is it's not very hard. And the benefits not just
Speaker 1: the interest rate. There are a lot of other benefits
Speaker 1: to banking somewhere that's other than the big banks as well,
Speaker 1: like fewer fees, better customer service, better uh APP interface typically,
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot of reasons to make the switch,
Speaker 1: and we want to help you do that with this article. Um,
Speaker 1: if you haven't done it yet, that's right, and it's
Speaker 1: easier than you think. So Joel in the UH in
Speaker 1: the title of the episode, you mentioned robin Hood. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's the name that we haven't said recently
Speaker 1: so that everyone's like, oh, robin Hood. So we talked
Speaker 1: about them in a while eighteen months ago, two years ago.
Speaker 1: So listener Tyler. He actually sent us an email basically
Speaker 1: immediately on Tuesday after an announcement from robin Hood was
Speaker 1: made about them finally launching I ra a sh There
Speaker 1: is currently a wait list, but it looks like this
Speaker 1: is going to roll out to the general public come January.
Speaker 1: And of course we've we've knocked robin Hood over the
Speaker 1: years for not offering retirement accounts. I think that was
Speaker 1: probably one of the biggest strikes against them. We were
Speaker 1: like a lot of these other platforms in one is
Speaker 1: robin Hood's competitor in a lot of ways, and we
Speaker 1: were like, one's doing way better and they allow you
Speaker 1: to have retirement accounts, Like, that's a way better option
Speaker 1: because of course we want folks investing within those tax
Speaker 1: advantaged accounts first before you invest in your robin Hood account,
Speaker 1: which previously uh and I guess even now is just
Speaker 1: brokerage accounts. Uh. So it was welcome news to hear
Speaker 1: that you can now open a traditional or a roth
Speaker 1: ira A on the platform. Plus, and here's the kicker man,
Speaker 1: robin Hood is offering a one percent in match on
Speaker 1: contributions that you make to your ira A on the platform.
Speaker 1: First of its kind. It's awesome. Yet like literally nobody
Speaker 1: else in the business is offering anything like this. So
Speaker 1: folks are you're probably thinking, oh, Matt and Jel, they're
Speaker 1: gonna be all about this. They completely love this right well,
Speaker 1: because typically it's a mixed bag. You have to work
Speaker 1: somewhere and getting your employer does the match, right, But
Speaker 1: this is robin Hood saying no word as the brokerage,
Speaker 1: as the company itself. They are providing the match, which
Speaker 1: I think is awesome, and so it is a mixed
Speaker 1: bag though, like we we love that robin Hood is
Speaker 1: offering that match incentive, but there are some other things
Speaker 1: you need to consider, and we would recommend for folks
Speaker 1: to check out the f a QUES section on their website.
Speaker 1: Will link to this in the show notes. But if
Speaker 1: you want to keep that one percent match, there is
Speaker 1: a five year vesting period. And also we noticed too
Speaker 1: there is an outgoing transfer fee of a hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: which is pretty steep. It's worth noting that our favorite,
Speaker 1: our very favorite brokerage houses, UH Fidelity and Vanguard neither
Speaker 1: one of them charging anything in order to transfer funds
Speaker 1: out of an zero versus a hundred. That's a big deal.
Speaker 1: It sounds really nice. But yeah, you might be handcuffed
Speaker 1: to Robin Hood, which may not be the worst thing
Speaker 1: in the world though, right like, because I mean, I say,
Speaker 1: like it almost feels like Robin Hood, like that they're
Speaker 1: starting to live up their name a little bit, right
Speaker 1: because by encouraging investors to stick with them for that
Speaker 1: five year investing period, essentially not only are they encouraging
Speaker 1: investors to stay with them, but they're encouraging investors to
Speaker 1: not touch money that should be invested for the long term.
Speaker 1: Right and so, as opposed to before, it seems more
Speaker 1: self interested than than an attempt to help people. Actually say,
Speaker 1: but if it's win win. I don't. I don't see
Speaker 1: the harm in that, right, and if I can get
Speaker 1: on there as someone who has been self employed virtually
Speaker 1: my entire life, where I have never experienced a company massage,
Speaker 1: literally this is I mean, we were able to provide
Speaker 1: ourselves a match you and I as business owners, but exactly,
Speaker 1: but for it to feel like it's something that you're
Speaker 1: getting completely free, I'm actually really stinking bullish on this.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about it, and I'll be looking into
Speaker 1: it and keeping folks posted if I do end up
Speaker 1: doing that, because I mean I think I will, I
Speaker 1: really do, and I don't. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: folks are also saying, dude, it's just one percent. But
Speaker 1: imagine like basically what I think what robin Hood is
Speaker 1: doing here, Like they're essentially forcing a one percent fee
Speaker 1: on everybody else. It's almost as if you're four one
Speaker 1: k because if I can get Voo, which you can,
Speaker 1: you can get Vanguard e t s. You know, on
Speaker 1: the robin Hood platform, by going with robin Hood instead
Speaker 1: of even through Vanguard. By robin Hood offering that one percent,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost as if Vanguard, if they instituted a
Speaker 1: one percent expense ratio or something like that. And so
Speaker 1: while it doesn't sound like a lot of money, those
Speaker 1: you know that that one percent it adds up over time.
Speaker 1: And I always said it's not meaningless. Right when you
Speaker 1: bump up your four ok contribution by one percent, that
Speaker 1: matters over the long haul. And so if you're this
Speaker 1: holiday season, you're thinking, Okay, I have more money on
Speaker 1: hand than I thought I was going to have, and
Speaker 1: you bump that up, that's a big deal, Like that's
Speaker 1: something worth worthy of praises. So I think you're right, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to compounds over time, but I also
Speaker 1: want to make sure that Robin hood is going to
Speaker 1: do right by investors, because yeah, I'm not sure hopefully
Speaker 1: they do right. Like, yeah, they haven't been around as
Speaker 1: long as Vanguard or Fidelity. Then they've been around for like,
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred a long time. I don't know
Speaker 1: if the hundred years yet, but Robin Hoods, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they've been a on for close to a
Speaker 1: decade now. They're not like a new fintech start up
Speaker 1: where they also haven't septation in that decade's and so
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I'm willing to give up the
Speaker 1: burden the hand that is one of these low cost
Speaker 1: brograges that we love to head over to robin Hood
Speaker 1: for this match. But I will say, like, if you
Speaker 1: haven't started contributing to Traditional or roth Ira yet and
Speaker 1: this match, this incentive actually gets you to do that.
Speaker 1: If this is the behavioral kicking the pants, you know
Speaker 1: that that pushes you in that direction. I think that's great.
Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna disswage people from doing business with
Speaker 1: robin Hood. I just don't know if I'm gonna migrate
Speaker 1: over there just for this fair enough, But yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: see more, especially as the rollout continues to happen. Right
Speaker 1: now there's I think I I signed up to be
Speaker 1: on the wait list just to check it out, and
Speaker 1: I think I'm four and people behind. So it'll be
Speaker 1: a minute. But while we're talking about Iras, Matt, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to mention too that the roth Ira we
Speaker 1: robin Hood offers the Traditional and the roth just like
Speaker 1: just like most of these brokerage companies that we talked about,
Speaker 1: just like vanguardien Fidela, you can do either one with
Speaker 1: with both of them, or with Schwab or within one,
Speaker 1: which is great But there's so many reasons that we've
Speaker 1: talked about ad nauseum on this show over the years
Speaker 1: about why you should opt for why so many people
Speaker 1: should not for a wrath over a traditional ira that
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that tax rates are historically low
Speaker 1: and set to go up, you know at the the
Speaker 1: expiration of the Tax Cuts and Job Act. That's a
Speaker 1: solid reason to contribute more to your wrath instead of
Speaker 1: a traditional you know, the flexibility of that particular account
Speaker 1: is another reason. But a third is that roth iras
Speaker 1: do not force you to take required minimum distributions and
Speaker 1: those r m d s. Yeah, I know most of
Speaker 1: us were trying to visualize our future self and that's
Speaker 1: actually helping us save more in the here and now
Speaker 1: for our futures. Identify with sixty five year old Matt
Speaker 1: and Joel, Right, we want to like kind of realize, wait,
Speaker 1: we want to be well taken care of at that
Speaker 1: age and and we want the more financial flexibility. But
Speaker 1: require minimum distributions can really have a major impact on
Speaker 1: your tax liability and retirements. And so yeah, if it
Speaker 1: will link to an article that will kind of help
Speaker 1: you see just how bad it can yet. But yeah,
Speaker 1: for most folks, not all, but for most, prioritizing a
Speaker 1: roth ira is going to be the best way to
Speaker 1: optimize your retirement contributions, allowing you the most flexibility throughout
Speaker 1: the years. That's right, man, We've got several other stories
Speaker 1: that we're gonna get to here right after the break,
Speaker 1: including that cable comeback story. Looking forward to that right
Speaker 1: after this. All right, the Friday flight continues, and of
Speaker 1: course we always are. Right for the break, we have
Speaker 1: to get to our ludicrous headline of the week, and
Speaker 1: this one comes from the Washington Post, Matt, and this
Speaker 1: one it's a curveball. Okay, I'm not gonna lie. It's
Speaker 1: it's not typically like what we talked about. This isn't
Speaker 1: quite as much personal finance as it is. Just literally
Speaker 1: a ludicrous headline and definitely definitely ludicrous. Alright, So here's
Speaker 1: how it reads. It says her mac and cheese took
Speaker 1: more than three and a half minutes to make. She's suing,
Speaker 1: and yeah, like, it just struck me as cringeworthy when
Speaker 1: I read it, And to me, it just speaks to
Speaker 1: how lititious we've gotten as a society, which actually costs
Speaker 1: all of us more money. So I guess in some
Speaker 1: ways it is kind of a personal finance thing. Like
Speaker 1: these this these lawsuits that they they are going to
Speaker 1: mean that Velvita now has to pay their lawyers. They
Speaker 1: got a lawyer up in order to defend their reputation.
Speaker 1: And basically what this this woman is alleging, and she's
Speaker 1: saying that the Velvita mac and cheese carton takes it
Speaker 1: says it takes three and a half minutes to make,
Speaker 1: but that's just how much time it takes in the microwave.
Speaker 1: She's got to take the lid off at the water
Speaker 1: stern cheese. It just made me feel like we're living
Speaker 1: in odd times. I don't like to see stuff like this,
Speaker 1: and you know, I false advertising is a problem, and
Speaker 1: it needs to be sure. Sometimes lawsuits need to happen
Speaker 1: in order to curb bad company behavior. This feels like
Speaker 1: one of those frivolous things that's just kind of frustrating
Speaker 1: to read. It seems pretty done. Yeah, that's exactly whether
Speaker 1: what the case that they're trying to make. They're like, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how ridiculous, Like this is false advertising
Speaker 1: and and so there's like a part of me that
Speaker 1: kind of understands where they're coming from. Like, so it
Speaker 1: actually it makes me think of as a kid, I
Speaker 1: would open the paintry and there's a box of ice
Speaker 1: cream cones, right, like of sugar cones, And I would
Speaker 1: always open the box because it had a picture of
Speaker 1: an ice cream cone with ice cream in it. And
Speaker 1: I would open always open the box as a you know,
Speaker 1: dumb little kid, thinking that there might be ice cream
Speaker 1: in there. And I would actually do it multiple times,
Speaker 1: just hoping that the results were gonna change magically somehow.
Speaker 1: Uh And so yeah, a part of me gets the
Speaker 1: whole false advertising thing, but again I was a dumb
Speaker 1: little five year old and so as uh an adult,
Speaker 1: I think Amanda Ramirez maybe just think if if she
Speaker 1: spent her time in better ways that would be more
Speaker 1: productive for society, if she, you know, maybe focused on
Speaker 1: her personal finances instead of taking vil Vita or craft
Speaker 1: or whoever the court right Yeah, now it's I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't like seeing it. And fortunately your five year
Speaker 1: old self didn't end up suing the ice cream cone.
Speaker 1: I had better things to do with my time. But
Speaker 1: think about how much how wealthy you be if you
Speaker 1: had uh yeah, plus Bill, I mean mac like mac
Speaker 1: and cheese that comes in a box or comes in
Speaker 1: a cup like that, I'm not going to touch that stuff. Sorry,
Speaker 1: even if they do fix growth out marketing, just watching
Speaker 1: their commercials and the liquid gold stuff, I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 1: not for me. Not not good. But moving on. So
Speaker 1: a while back, we did an entire episode about streaming
Speaker 1: and how it is that you can curb your bill.
Speaker 1: One of our major suggestions actually was to watch less
Speaker 1: content in general, right because a cadre of streaming bills
Speaker 1: can quickly add up, and as more and more streaming
Speaker 1: services have launched over the past couple of years in particular,
Speaker 1: there's just the potential for your bill to get really
Speaker 1: out of hand, so much so that the folks over
Speaker 1: at c net they wrote an article about how traditional cable,
Speaker 1: how it's not nearly as terrible of a deal as
Speaker 1: it used to be. The average cost for basic cable
Speaker 1: plus internet these days is eight dollars, and they found
Speaker 1: that the average cost of live TV streaming plus internet
Speaker 1: for those who cut the chord, for those who cut cable,
Speaker 1: it's actually a hundred and twenty dollars. That's pretty damn close,
Speaker 1: like so close. The horse race on her hands. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that like we think it is worth revisiting. That's why
Speaker 1: we're talking about Yeah, I mean it certainly feels like
Speaker 1: has a point here, right because cutting the chord it
Speaker 1: used to be the obvious way to save Like, I
Speaker 1: kind of got tired of hearing it from personal finance
Speaker 1: experts because it's like, duh, yeah, I know that's it
Speaker 1: became ubiquitous and everybody knew that the way to save
Speaker 1: money every single month on you know what they watched
Speaker 1: was to cut the chord and ditch cable. But the
Speaker 1: opposite might be true now, which is crazy because if
Speaker 1: you're paying for one of those live streaming services, but
Speaker 1: you're also subscribed to a whole bunch of other streaming
Speaker 1: services too, there's a chance that you might be paying
Speaker 1: more now than you used to pay for your old
Speaker 1: Internet and cable bundles. And I doubt that there's going
Speaker 1: to be this mass exodus map from streaming back to cable,
Speaker 1: partly because we all got used to no commercials. But
Speaker 1: it's at least worth doing the math and considering if
Speaker 1: you're a heavy TV watcher, especially for sports, especially for
Speaker 1: live sports, it feels, oh yeah, I still can't believe
Speaker 1: I'm saying this, but cable might make more sense for you.
Speaker 1: Foobo TV, they're monthly. It's so expensive, like yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like seventy like maybe sevent it might be eighty bucks.
Speaker 1: And I mean same thing with like YouTube. You've gotta
Speaker 1: buy internet on top of that standalone internet. It's really expensive. Yea.
Speaker 1: So again, watching less TV overall leads to spending less.
Speaker 1: But cable might be the better solution. It's just it's
Speaker 1: worth shopping around packages. If you're saying, man, my streaming
Speaker 1: bill has gotten out of control, it might. I don't know.
Speaker 1: This could be the best most effective financial solution for
Speaker 1: you to move back to cable if that suits your lifestyle,
Speaker 1: If that suits you're watching habits, and if it's going
Speaker 1: to suit your budget better, that's right, man, let's keep moving.
Speaker 1: So we've never loved the credit scoring models, right like,
Speaker 1: so the major credit bureaus, for the most part, they're
Speaker 1: not very good at their jobs. Errors are rife, and
Speaker 1: they hardly ever respond to please for help in a
Speaker 1: timely or an effective manner. If you fill out a complaint,
Speaker 1: they usually just don't respond. That's how they like stone.
Speaker 1: While you maybe we'll get back to you next year.
Speaker 1: But still it's necessary to keep a watchful eye on
Speaker 1: your score. Uh, It's important to seek to improve your score.
Speaker 1: It's basically, it's just like a crappy game that we're
Speaker 1: all basically forced to play. Well. Credit scores are under
Speaker 1: fire again, but this time because of identity theft claims
Speaker 1: from individuals that actually might not be true. The Journal
Speaker 1: wrote a story about how more Americans are hiring third
Speaker 1: party companies to help challenge negative information on their credit reports.
Speaker 1: But many of those companies are also challenging actual legitimate
Speaker 1: debts as well. And so while you know, for the
Speaker 1: most part, I feel like the credit beers are crap, right,
Speaker 1: but but many of these credit repairer companies are are
Speaker 1: actually worse than their horse race. This is a horse
Speaker 1: race or yeah, which which one sucks the most? Uh?
Speaker 1: And so what we would recommend is just to not
Speaker 1: ever pay one of these companies to challenge something on
Speaker 1: your credit credit report. For you, if you think that
Speaker 1: you've been a victim of ID theft, we would recommend
Speaker 1: that you go straight to first of all, like your bank,
Speaker 1: but in you can finally complain at identity theft dot GOV.
Speaker 1: But there's there's rarely anything that these companies can do
Speaker 1: that you can't do yourself. And it seems that I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe some of these individuals, some of these
Speaker 1: folks out there, maybe they're kind of like hiring these
Speaker 1: companies thinking that they've got like some sort of magic sauce,
Speaker 1: some sort of special algorithm, uh, when in reality, what
Speaker 1: they're doing, they're just bombarding the credit carrows. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a brute force attack on a website, website nursery
Speaker 1: for you. And then and then some of that's slipping
Speaker 1: through and because of that, it's allowing some of those
Speaker 1: scores to improve. But don't do something like that when
Speaker 1: like you're basically you're hiring a company to do the
Speaker 1: dirty work for you. It's just not cool to do
Speaker 1: that when you wouldn't lie to them directly. So don't
Speaker 1: do it in a roundabout way by hiring one of
Speaker 1: these companies. Well, and it's not like the results are
Speaker 1: gonna be long lived, and you're just gonna cost you
Speaker 1: a lot of money potentially as well. And so it's
Speaker 1: just a bad idea. And the FTC they just sent
Speaker 1: out a warning about these debt relief companies in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of a lawsuit that they're heading up on behalf
Speaker 1: of consumers who have been impacted by some of these
Speaker 1: shady companies. And the biggest piece of advice they offer
Speaker 1: is to never pay someone money upfront who tells you
Speaker 1: that they can reduce or eliminate credit card debt, or
Speaker 1: if they claim that they can lift your credit score
Speaker 1: out of the dumps. These are common claims and it
Speaker 1: sounds really nice. It's like, Hey, this company is gonna
Speaker 1: do it on my ma half. I'll pay him a
Speaker 1: couple hundred bucks, pay me first fucks right now, and
Speaker 1: then they are going to lift my score or find
Speaker 1: a way to help me jettison some of this debt. Well, sadly,
Speaker 1: that's not what ends up happening almost ever. And so
Speaker 1: if your credit score is subfar, we would say go
Speaker 1: back and listen to episode to eight seven will link
Speaker 1: to that in the show notes. The reality is you
Speaker 1: don't need a perfect credit score, but having a solid
Speaker 1: one is crucial for your financial future, and this is
Speaker 1: something that you can d i y though, right This
Speaker 1: is something you don't need to hire someone else to
Speaker 1: do on your behalf, and actually it's it's not gonna
Speaker 1: work in the long run if you do. But let's
Speaker 1: say your credit score is in good shape, but you
Speaker 1: have debt that you're finding it basically impossible to pay off.
Speaker 1: Call your credit card company directly to ask for a
Speaker 1: payment plan, or to ask for a lower interest rate,
Speaker 1: or you know, go speak to a credit counselor at
Speaker 1: a nonprofit like Money Management in National or NFCC, the
Speaker 1: National Foundation for Credit Counciling. Those are the place those
Speaker 1: are the places you turn. Those are the people that
Speaker 1: are companies, legit organization, nonprofits that will counsel you in
Speaker 1: the right direction, who won't lead you astray, unlike these
Speaker 1: for profit companies that say, yeah, based five hun bucks
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll see what we can make happen. That's
Speaker 1: gonna leave you just poorer and still with a crummy
Speaker 1: credit score at the end of the day. That's right.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to our last story of
Speaker 1: the day, and let's talk about the cost of utilities,
Speaker 1: because home energy costs are not cheap right now. The
Speaker 1: average cost of heating a homes winner it's predicted to
Speaker 1: be eighteen percent more than it was last year, which
Speaker 1: is a significant increase talking about inflation and the Yeah,
Speaker 1: the weather. It's getting colder across the you know, most
Speaker 1: of the country at least, even though yesterday it was
Speaker 1: like seventies something degrees in Atlanta. That's Atlanta. It's I
Speaker 1: saw somebody post and it was something like, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be winner at six am, it's gonna be fall at
Speaker 1: nine am, it's gonna be summer at one pm. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: that's exactactly. But yeah, you know, with the timing, we
Speaker 1: figured this is a good idea to cover maybe just
Speaker 1: a few ways to lower the cost of heating your home.
Speaker 1: So we've got a few tips, a few thoughts for you.
Speaker 1: First of all, of course, lower the temperature on your
Speaker 1: thermostat by a couple of degrees. Put on a sweater,
Speaker 1: right like everyone in your household, this winner should be
Speaker 1: wearing Long John's or thermal thermals or like whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you in your in your region. Because it's
Speaker 1: something like every degree you turned down your thermostat, it's
Speaker 1: gonna save you a percent on your interview bill. And
Speaker 1: if you think about it like that, ye three takes
Speaker 1: down and like significant, but I'm gonna save a giant
Speaker 1: chunk on on what I'm spending to heat this house
Speaker 1: this this month exactly. But obviously there's other things you
Speaker 1: can do too, right like taking shorter showers, running your
Speaker 1: washing machine on cold water instead of hot That's one
Speaker 1: that I recently, I can't remember when I heard it
Speaker 1: sometime earlier this year, but I heard a story where
Speaker 1: a lot of folks they do hot water when they're
Speaker 1: washing their clothes because they think it works better. They
Speaker 1: think it it dissolves the soap better. But in reality,
Speaker 1: a lot of the detergents there may they're they're formulated
Speaker 1: to work better in cold water, And so that's one
Speaker 1: where you actually might be wasting money without receiving any
Speaker 1: benefit from that. Plus shortening the life the life expectancy
Speaker 1: of your clothes as well, because that hot water doesn't
Speaker 1: hot water kind of where done, your clothing maybe causes
Speaker 1: a little more shrinkage. And on that note too, you
Speaker 1: can lower the temperature on your actual hot water heater
Speaker 1: as well, although that's one that I was gonna say
Speaker 1: a dad joke about that. That one got me in
Speaker 1: hot water as well. Actually, we've got our hot water
Speaker 1: hot water heater turned down to where it's pretty much
Speaker 1: good for like two showers before our kids have to start,
Speaker 1: like the water is getting cold and they have to
Speaker 1: get out of there. That's good, we're getting hard. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then it lowers your bill too. Yeah, I lowered.
Speaker 1: My mind was like scalding. So I just like brown
Speaker 1: down a few ticks and it's like, okay, now it's
Speaker 1: kind of normal, which is great. Save save me money though,
Speaker 1: and a little bit of weather shipping can go a
Speaker 1: long way in preventing from escaping too. There's a little
Speaker 1: things you can do, right uh. And and if you
Speaker 1: want to do something bigger, well, next year is going
Speaker 1: to be the year to do it because there's gonna
Speaker 1: be increased tax benefits in read when it comes to
Speaker 1: taking some of these energy saving measures. That's my plan.
Speaker 1: I'm going to put in some additional installation in my
Speaker 1: attic space because I want to take advantage of tax
Speaker 1: credit it's coming into being next year. Yeah. Yeah, our
Speaker 1: attic is good, but I want to My plan is
Speaker 1: to put installation in the crawl space, like up underneath
Speaker 1: the floor because the floors I've noticed this winner on
Speaker 1: the main level or on the lower level, it's cold, man, Like,
Speaker 1: there's no installation up under there, so I've been waiting
Speaker 1: to wait for the Caldar. Exactly can do that well.
Speaker 1: And one other thing, if you're having trouble with how
Speaker 1: expensive the energy bills are getting in this country, a
Speaker 1: lot more people are gonna have trouble paying their bills, well,
Speaker 1: there's a low income energy assistance program. Will link to
Speaker 1: a site that can help you figure out how to
Speaker 1: get help if you need it in the show notes,
Speaker 1: but you can also just reach out to your state
Speaker 1: program manager or to your local utility company to see like, hey,
Speaker 1: do I qualify with if this is my level of income,
Speaker 1: do I qualify for subsidized energy assistance? And and I think, Matt,
Speaker 1: just a lot of people don't know about that program.
Speaker 1: But who knows how many How Money listeners that might
Speaker 1: apply to, Exactly or at least folks that they might
Speaker 1: know who help as well. That's right, man, Um, Well
Speaker 1: that's gonna be it for this episode. Listeners can find
Speaker 1: our show notes up on the website at how to
Speaker 1: Money dot com. Will make sure to link to these
Speaker 1: stories plus a new resources we may have mentioned. We
Speaker 1: hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, and like we mentioned
Speaker 1: at the top of the episode, go ahead and sign
Speaker 1: up for the how to Money newsletter. That way, you
Speaker 1: are guaranteed to not miss out on any future giveaways
Speaker 1: that we do via the newsletter. But Joel, that's gonna
Speaker 1: be it for this episode, Buddy. Until next time, best
Speaker 1: friends Out and best Friends Out